She drags tired heels

across a tainted floor,

poise slightly bowed

and her back is sore.

She holds on her face

a cold marble stare,

a hard life engraved

upon cheeks once so fair.

Her faulting movements,

once graceful; divine,

her aching limbs now

with guile, defy

her final performance

on this dark empty stage,

memories fleeting

of a much better age...

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How brave, in reality, is a ‘brave face’?

A facade shared, it would seem,

by the majority of the human race.

Beneath the flaking paint of a painted mask

lies a truth too long and painful to explain

no matter how oft you care to ask.

How long before the cracks become too wide

to conceal with powders and creams

and the crimson smile starts to slide.

How long...

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As a new day dawns and I open my eyes

I look upon a world in painless surprise.

A smile creeps across my hopeful face

as I lie in bed, my comfy place.

A tentative move; a testing stretch but

then comes a cough and my face is etched

with pain, like a stalker in darkened streets

as I grudgingly rise to my unsteady feet.

Reaching to grab at the windowsill and

hold...

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